Dynegy acquiring 5 plants

Dynegy Inc., the parent company of the subsidiaries that are selling the Roseton and Danskammer power plants, plans to acquire five coal-fueled plants in Illinois in the fourth quarter of this year.

jessica Dinapoli

Dynegy Inc., the parent company of the subsidiaries that are selling the Roseton and Danskammer power plants, plans to acquire five coal-fueled plants in Illinois in the fourth quarter of this year.

No cash or stock was exchanged in the deal. Dynegy is putting up a $25 million guarantee to the plants' owner, a Midwestern power company called Ameren Corp., for certain liabilities related to the disposal and reuse of coal ash, a residual from burning coal, said spokeswoman Katy Sullivan in an email.

Dynegy will also take on about $825 million in financial obligations from one of Ameren's subsidiaries in the deal.

The transaction will bring Ameren a tax benefit of about $180 million in 2015, according to a press release.

The acquisition comes as Dynegy finishes the sale process for Roseton and Danskammer and wraps up its bankruptcy case in Poughkeepsie. Danskammer's buyer, ICS NY Holdings, plans to raze the mostly coal-fueled plant.

Judge Cecelia Morris on Tuesday approved the liquidation plans for the corporate entities that own the two plants.

Dynegy says that the coal plants it is acquiring — Duck Creek, Coffeen, E.D. Edwards, Newton and Joppa — complement the company's existing CoalCo portfolio. CoalCo is one of two silos of assets Dynegy created before another one of its subsidiaries, Dynegy Holdings, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011.

Roseton and Danskammer were segregated into their own division, Dynegy Northeast Generation.

Altogether, the five new Illinois plants generate 4,119 megawatts of power, doubling the amount of power generation Dynegy currently has in the state, according to a press release.

Running at full capacity, Roseton and Danskammer generate about 1,700 megawatts of power.